


we push away what we can never understand; we push away the unimaginable

by sakura_freefall



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Era, Character Study, Enjolras Is Bad At Emotions, Ghosts, Grantaire Lives AU, Heavy Angst, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Barricade, Sad Grantaire, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Someone Help R, Title Shamelessly Stolen From Hamilton Song, starts angsty but gets better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26925364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakura_freefall/pseuds/sakura_freefall
Summary: Grantaire wakes up too late, and he must learn to live in a world he never wanted.Though it may be too late to save his friends, it isn't too late to make things right.
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables), Les Amis de l'ABC Friendship
Comments: 6
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Someone tell me to stop writing enjoltaire angst. I promise I'll do something fluffy soon...
> 
> Leave a kudos and comment if you enjoyed!! My tumblr is dauntless-sakura.

_1832~_

Grantaire opens his eyes, feeling them sticky with sleep. The last night was a blur- he can barely recall it. He shifts himself from his uncomfortable position on the Musain floor, wondering why the window is shattered-

Oh. _Oh._

He sees Enjolras hanging out the window. Something hard and hot rises in this throat, and all he can do do was run down the dented stairs as fast as he is able, which isn't very. Because Enjolras couldn't be dead, he was incapable of death, wasn't he? The idea of him being able to die was as foreign as the sun disappearing. Until it wasn't. 

He stumbles across pavement, into an alleyway, unable to look any longer at the reality. It slowly comes back to him, everything, all of it. And him, the drunk fool who slept through the battle. Perhaps it is fate's will that now he goes to drink more. He buys a cheap bottle at a shabby pub- not the Musain- before running back into a street corner and pouring the bitter stuff into his mouth. Maybe if he's lucky, it'll knock him out and he can get some rest. It's not like he cares about his health, but his head hurts like hell and he'd rather it not.

His dreams are full of smoke and screams and Enjolras and a white flag dyed red with blood. Waking up is both a relief and a curse.

And so he begins his half-life, not living anymore, only surviving. He sleeps on the streets, wears his same old clothes, day after day, stealing what he can get and begging for what he can't, each day another reminder of the shell of a human he's become. He's always on the edge of a hangover, swimming muddily through alcohol-induced confusion, unable to do anything but empty his head of all thoughts. It hurts less than the alternative. Believing in things just gets you killed.

He visits the cemetary... sometime. Catches Joly and Bossuet up on the gossip, complains to Eponine about unrequited loves, apologizes over and over again, never able to stay more than an hour, sometimes less. It hurts too much. Carrying on one-sided conversations is hard on the converser, and Grantaire has never been one for challenges. The one person he never mentions, never looks for, is Enjolras. Because he can still remember the last conversation they had- him half-drunk on wine, Enjolras half-drunk on the revolution. Enjolras had said he was incapable of living and breathing and willing and dying. And he was right. Grantaire couldn't even die when he was supposed to. Always out of sync with the universe, wasn't he. In love with the one person who hated him more than anything else, and not even able to tear himself away. He was a moth to a flame. Enjolras was perfect because he was untouchable, and untouchable because he was perfect.

Enjolras may have been an Icarus flying too close to the sun, but Grantaire was Perdix, who fell because of him. Daedalaus's guilt over Icarus drove him to shove Perdix off the tower, and as for Grantaire, he is both the murderer and the murdered.

One night, however, a few months into this torture called existance, he gets himself drunk- well, drunker than usual, to the point of complete incoherancy. He remembers being forced roughly out of the local wineshop, feeling his vision go fuzzy, stumbling his way to the one place he could think of- the cemetary where he should've been to begin with. He leans against a gravestone, not knowing or caring whose it may be, feeling his consciousness dip to black just like it had that night...

_Incapable of living and breathing and willing and dying..._

_Incapable of dying..._

_Of dying..._

The words are the only thing ringing in his ears and in his mind, like a sadistic bell chorus, and he feels the hot hatred and anger flowing through them, twisting into a chorus of hateful Apollos merging through his skull, and Grantaire deserves every bit of it, every single bit, because he is a failure and a mistake and a useless gutter rat, and in a spiral of thoughts like sharp rocks or metal bullets, he passes out, likely a result of the absurd amount of alchohol he had consumed earlier.

He wakes and it is still nighttime, and the rock is hard against his skin and he feels his head hurt like it's on fire, and he wants to go back to sleep, or die, or anything that will make the pain go away, but the demons are in his head again and...

He repeats the line in a whisper over and over again like a mantra, a reminder, a confirmation of all he is and could never be. "You are incapable of living and breathing and willing and dying. Incapable of living and breathing and willing and dying." Over and over and over again until hot tears run down his cheeks and he's sobbing at nothing but the moon, completely and utterly broken.

He doesn't know why he looks up. It's subconscious maybe, just a randomly timed burst of fate. But he raises his head out of his hands for just a second, to see Enjolras standing in front of him.

He looks nothing like the scarred, bloody person sitting desperately atop a pile of furniture. His face is clean, and he's wearing his red vest, and he's surrounded by a sort of glowing light like a halo. Maybe he was always Apollo, and now he's done with his short stint as a human. He looks more real than he ever did while alive. 

And impossibly, the unbreakable, unapologetic, mythical Enjolras is _crying._ Tears are staining his cheeks, and his eyes are red and watery. The tears catch the strange light and reflect it in a million different ways, and a low sound like sobbing wind is coming from somewhere far away.

Grantaire forces himself to stand, because how could he sit, like a slob, like scum of the earth, in front of an angel? His head burns in complaint, and every part of his body aches. When he does, he chances a look at the gravestone beside him, because he needs some idea, some explanation, and sure enough it reads Enjolras.

He feels something warm like wind in summer rush into him, and sees the fearless leader on the ground now, hugging his legs and crying, crying, and it hurts and shocks him to see his Apollo like this, for him, for anything. 

"I'm sorry," Enjolras repeats, over and over. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." 

"What- sorry- wh- for..." The cat has Grantaire's tongue, and he feels like he is choking. 

"For... for everything I said... everything I did to you, and what I said that night... I don't know why, but now look, you believe it, and it's my... my fault." He's still crying.

_Enjolras is sorry for what he said to me?_

"I wanted to..." he continues. "I wanted to keep you safe, keep you away from it, make you go back... I was desperate, and you... you do things to my head, and I never meant for you to take it how... how you did, and every time you came here, it hurt and I can't stand to see you do this to yourself over something I said..."

"No! It's not- not your fault! It's mine! All mine, you were right, you were right all the time, see, I'm a useless failure, s...see?"

Enjolras finally steps back a bit and stands up, brushing pale tears from his eyes. "No... Grantaire, you are many things, but failure is not one of them."

"But... but why is this..."

"Don't, R." Enjolras's voice is gentler, like a soft wisp of smoke on a cold day. "Stop hurting yourself, stop this, Joly is furious, you've upset young Prouvaire... you do not want to upset the poet, do you now? Please do not do this to yourself..."

"I'm not worth your time, fearless leader," he mumbles. "Go... enjoy the afterlife, or whatever. Bother Pontmercy. Leave me be."

"Don't call me that, I'm not fearless and I'm not your leader. You lead yourself, just like we all do. And I can't enjoy anything until I stop looking at you and seeing all my mistakes."

"You're right, you should never have invited me to your society, I've only been trouble..."

"No, not like that, you are essential! You shored up the weaknesses in our arguments, pointed out inconsistancies..."

"But... I'm not worth this. You hate me, hated me, I don't matter."

"R, listen to me." He's leaning in closer to Grantaire now, and Grantaire is getting lost in that mesmerizing light, the red vest the only splash of color in a grey, cold night. "I didn't ever hate you. Ever. I... one might have said I... loved you."

"Loved... me?" This must be a dream, the universe cannot be so kind and cruel at once.

"Yes. You distracted me, and made my heart beat fast, and made my mind fuzzy like the drinks you took. That's why- I mean, I did not want to be taken from the cause, could not afford to tell you... you do not have to reciprocate, I hurt you and I'm sorry, but that does nothing, I'm aware. Hate me, yell at me, disown me from your life... nothing can hurt me now."

"En... Enjolras, no... I... loved you too. In the same way. And I just wish you'd have... have s-said something..." Grantaire cannot breathe, cannot move, cannot think.

"Oh, R." And Grantaire feels arms around him, just barely, like a breath of warm air, and there's light, and someone is holding him. "R, be easy, I will always watch you. Take your time, but know I'll wait. Sleep now, dawn will come soon, sleep off that horrid drink."

"Stay..." he murmurs, half in the darkness of unconsciousness.

"I'll stay. I've never left. You are safe." The voice is music and ice and wind, and Grantaire falls into a dreamless sleep.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_1848~_

Grantaire is dying. He's sure of it. A whirlwind of events, another decade, another revolution he got caught up in, only this time because he actually believed in it. And now, again, ironically, it ends with him in a corner with a bullet in his stomach. And it hurts, and he can't move even if he wanted to, and everything's so, so cold...

"R, you have done something foolish again, have you not?" The voice is one he hasn't heard in years, and it makes him feel something he hasn't in so long. It's dry and tenor, with a hint of sardonic affection.

"Apollo..."

"Just Enjolras, please, as I have asked many times." So much and so little has changed.

"It's you... you're here..."

"Come with me. You'll be safe." Enjolras outstretches a hand, and Grantaire feels himself take it. "It's beautiful, we have a republic, and we're waiting for you." 

Grantaire stands, and it doesn't hurt any more. And as Enjolras's fingers wind around his own, the horizon changes. There's a red flag, and summer sunlight, and he can see faces of everyone, minus Pontmercy, and they're all beckoning him over, welcoming him...

"R, it's been so long!"

"Grantaire! Back again!"

"Come here, I have found another interesting moth!"

"I knew you'd find us!"

He knows, somewhere deep inside, that this is his family, and this is where he belongs. Enjolras looks back at him with a loving smile, his blue eyes bright and firey, his face full of affection that Grantaire never believed could be directed towards him. He feels his hand clasp his own, tighter and firmer and warm. And he lets Enjolras lead him through the light and into the future.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> enjolras's version of events, where he went wrong, and how he makes it right

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Part Two nobody asked for. Enjoy.

_1832~_

The first thing Enjolras can feel is pain. Pain, heart-crushing guilt, and a strange sense of loneliness. The emotions swirl in his mind, battle for dominance amidst something pulling his consciousness into a quiet, dark ocean.

He sinks, but he sinks upwards instead of down. He feels someone grabbing his arms, pulling him to his feet. He is even more taken aback when said someones turn out to be Combeferre and Courfeyrac.

"I've lost my hat," says the latter.

The former greets him, more sensibly perhaps with a simple "Hello, Enjolras."

He nods in acknowledgement but cannot look them in the eye. All he can do is choke out a simple "Where are the others?"

"We're right here." Jehan smiles, long red hair braided messily down his back. The young poet embraces him, and a bit of the brokenness melts away.

"I'm so sorry," he says, trying to imply everything he means in that one sentance. "I... you must hate me. You _should_ hate me."

"Hate you?" asks Bahorel in confusion. "Why would we hate you?"

"Because I led you nowhere. I failed and we all payed!"

"Be quiet, Enjolras," says Feuilly, chastising. "We knew what the risks were."

"Of course we don't hate ya," mutters Gavroche. "Well maybe I do, for not givin' me a gun." Eponine playfully shoves her hand over his mouth, shaking her head.

"Wait a moment," Enjolras says, noticing the slightly smaller number of people than there were total on the barricades, "Where's Pontmercy? And... and Grantaire?"

The sun catches Joly's dark hair as he answers with a slight scrunch of his nose, "Pontmercy's alive. Some old man dragged him through the sewers. Disgusting. I wouldn't trade places with him for anything." An image flashes through his mind of the younger boy asleep in a bed, arm bandaged, with a pretty young girl at his side.

"And... and Grantaire?" he asks, waiting with baited breath. If Grantaire wasn't here, he must be alive, mustn't he?

Combeferre places a steadying hand on his back. "Enjolras," he begins softly. "Maybe... maybe you should see for yourself."

In his mind's eye, he can see Paris. A back alleyway. As he focuses, he can see a man in a green waistcoat, slumped against a wall, a broken bottle next to him. The man's eyes are red and wet and half-shut, and he's muttering to himself darkly.

"Oh, no..."

"You were his entire world, you know," says Eponine, almost accusatory. "You treated him like horse shit. He was more in love with you than I was with Marius, and that says something."

"I know!" he yelled, feeling suddenly defensive. "I know, I loved him too, but I couldn't focus on that! I had to focus on the revolution!" He takes off down an unmarked street until he ends up crying in a corner for all that he lost, and all that could've, should've been. Finally, his eyes feel heavy, and he falls asleep.

He wakes with the unfading sunlight. He can barely look at his friends, and he wonders if the feeling is mutual. He passes the days thinking, regretting, reliving every moment he spent with Grantaire, and he feels like it is someone else, someone with his face, but not him. One perpetual morning, Jehan strides up to him with the aloof confidence only a Romantic can muster. He looks at Enjolras with sad eyes.

"Grantaire... he's going half-insane. Drunk more often than not, living on the streets..."

Enjolras shakes his head. "If this is a guilt trip, I don't want to hear it."

Prouvaire shivers a little, and Enjolras immediately regrets being so harsh. "It's not a guilt trip," he says gently. "I just mean to say that... maybe you should... I don't know..." The younger boy starts sniffling, and then straight out crying, sobbing into Enjolras's jacket, and all he can do is run his fingers through the poet's hair, murmuring words he doesn't believe. Jehan curls up into him, and Enjolras is secretly grateful for the touch.

The next day, Enjolras overhears Joly complaining loudly to Bossuet. "That absolute idiot! He's going to burn his liver!" Bossuet sighs in what seems like exhausted affection. "I _hate_ him! Well, I don't but you know what I mean!" The conversation continues, with Joly listing out fifteen different medical syndromes that he diagnoses Grantaire with on the spot, Bossuet rolling his eyes, and the subsequent crash that could only mean the bald man has tripped yet again. Some things never change, even with death.

Late that night, he looks for Grantaire again, and inhales sharply when he notices that the man is dangerously drunk. He watches him get thrown out of yet another bar, stagger through the streets half-consciously, and ends up at the cemetary. Perhaps to the man's credit, he manages not to collapse until he's through the gate. He stumbles up to the nearest stone- Enjolras's- and passes out right then and there. He's asleep for hours, and it's past midnight when he wakes up, delirious with alcohol, and pushes himself to a sitting position. 

Grantaire is crying. He's crying hot tears, more than he'd cried since that June morning. His head is against the smooth rock, and he's whimpering a line, over and over again. "Grantaire, you are incapable of willing and breathing and living and dying. Grantaire, you are incapable of willing and breathing and living and dying." His voice shakes each time, but he keeps repeating it, like some sort of incantation grounding him to the earth.

And Enjolras breaks inside. Because Grantaire's been constantly reminding himself of that line- that furious sentance born of stress and frustration. That's Grantaire's lasting impression of what Enjolras thinks of him. He thinks that Enjolras hates him, thinks he's useless. Guilt overpowers him, him to slump onto the floor, press his eyes to his hands until he sees spots, hoping that it will all fade away into the dark...

And it does, but not in the way he was expecting. He looks up, surprised to see himself in the Paris cemetary, standing a few feet away from the still-crying Grantaire. He feels even worse, standing here useless while his friend cries, but he doesn't even know what he is- a ghost, maybe? And Grantaire doesn't look at him, doesn't notice him, and Enjolras feels right in his heart, that he needs him to look up, _look up..._ His eyes tear up from the stress of it all, the guilt eating at him.

Maybe the universe is feeling a little less heartless tonight, because just as Enjolras is straining with every fibre of his half-corporeal being to make Grantaire look at him, the artist raises his head and does a double-take. Enjolras first tries to stifle his tears, before deciding that such a mask is useless anyways, and something deep inside him longs to release all the pain he is carrying, so he cries.

Grantaire stands, looking pained and tired, slowly pushing himself up from the cold ground. And Enjolras, without thinking, just on instinct, rushes over to him, clutches at his legs, desperate for human contact, desperate to communicate how sorry he is. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

"What- sorry- wh- for..." Grantaire stammers, taken aback.

"For... for everything I said... everything I did to you, and what I said that night... I don't know why, but now look, you believe it, and it's my... my fault." Enjolras shakes his head. It's not a good enough explanation. There is no good explanation. Grantaire's face turns from bitter hurt to genuine confusion, and a tiny flicker of hope.

Enjolras continues, feeling the words spill out of him like a bursting dam. "I wanted to... I wanted to keep you safe, keep you away from it, make you go back... I was desperate, and you... you do things to my head, and I never meant for you to take it how... how you did, and every time you came here, it hurt and I can't stand to see you do this to yourself over something I said..."

Grantaire speaks in a shaky voice. "No! It's not- not your fault! It's mine! All mine, you were right, you were right all the time, see, I'm a useless failure, s...see?" Enjolras has never hated himself more than in that moment, with this broken shell of a person beside him. His doing. His fault.

He wipes his eyes on his sleeve. "No... Grantaire, you are many things, but failure is not one of them."

"But... but why is this..." Grantaire gasps, looking overwhelmed.

Enolras remembers Jehan's pained sobs, and Joly's angry rants. And he feels something gentler inside of him. "Don't, R. Stop hurting yourself, stop this, Joly is furious, you've upset young Prouvaire... you do not want to upset the poet, do you now? Please do not do this to yourself..." He's pleading, begging for Grantaire's forgiveness, for his safety and sanity.

Grantaire rolls his eyes, a look of cynical despair entering them again. "I'm not worth your time, fearless leader," he mumbles. "Go... enjoy the afterlife, or whatever. Bother Pontmercy. Leave me be."

Enjolras feels a stab of hurt at the old nickname. "Don't call me that, I'm not fearless and I'm not your leader. You lead yourself, just like we all do. And I can't enjoy anything until I stop looking at you and seeing all my mistakes." He immediately regrets the last line. What has happened to his way with words?

"You're right, you should never have invited me to your society, I've only been trouble..."

Enjolras frantically thinks how to correct his mistake. "No, not like that, you are essential! You shored up the weaknesses in our arguments, pointed out inconsistancies..." he trails off.

"But... I'm not worth this. You hate me, hated me, I don't matter." Even the past tense is painful.

"R, listen to me." He leans in, looking the painter straight in the eyes. It's now or never. "I didn't ever hate you. Ever. I... one might have said I... loved you."

Grantaire's eyes go huge, and Enjolras could get lost in their streaked brown. "Loved... me?"

Enjolras knows he owes R the full explanation. "Yes. You distracted me, and made my heart beat fast, and made my mind fuzzy like the drinks you took. That's why- I mean, I did not want to be taken from the cause, could not afford to tell you... you do not have to reciprocate, I hurt you and I'm sorry, but that does nothing, I'm aware. Hate me, yell at me, disown me from your life... nothing can hurt me now." He prepares himself for rejection, for an angry outburst and mocking. But it never comes.

"En... Enjolras, no... I... loved you too. In the same way. And I just wish you'd have... have s-said something..." Grantaire, for once in his life, looks lost for words.

On a strange instinct, Enjolras rushes forwards, throwing his arms around the cynic. Stroking his hair, soothing him as he gags and retches from his hangover. Feeling him slowly relax as Enjolras rubs his hand gently against his back. "Oh, R. R, be easy, I will always watch you. Take your time, but know I'll wait. Sleep now, dawn will come soon, sleep off that horrid drink." He knows that now is for comforting and reassuring.

"Stay..." Grantaire moans tiredly.

"I'll stay," he promises. "I've never left. You're safe." Grantaire's breathing slows and falls asleep in Enjolras's arms.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_1848~_

There is another rebellion. And this time the people do rise. Enjolras feels a burst of pride. His Patria, finally free. And then he realizes why he's on the ground, instead of watching from above.

Grantaire is slumped in an alleyway corner with a bullet in his stomach.

"No..." he murmurs softly. "'Taire..."

Grantaire's breathing slows, then stops, then starts again. He blinks open his eyes, focusing on Enjolras. Enjolras smiles and does his best to look reassuring. "R, you have done something foolish again, have you not?"

"Apollo..." he gasps.

Enjolras feels himself falling back into his old teasing routine. "Just Enjolras, please, as I have asked many times."

Grantaire's eyes are wide and still processing the unfolding situation. "It's you... you're here..."

Enjolras nods, beckoning Grantaire forward. "Come with me. You'll be safe." Enjolras outstretches a hand, and Grantaire leans forward to take it. "It's beautiful, we have a republic, and we're waiting for you." Enjolras pulls him forward, and feels the scene fade into another.

Bossuet is the first to rush forward towards the pair. "R, it's been so long!"

"Grantaire! Back again!" Courfeyrac chimes in.

"Come here, I've found another interesting moth!" calls Combeferre, who's examining something that has landed on his finger.

"I knew you'd find us!" shouts Jehan with conviction, finally smiling.

Grantaire's smile is like a full moon. His eyes fill with light, and Enjolras clasps onto his hand even tighter, trying to convey everything the words don't reach. People rush around them, embracing them with open arms.

And finally, Enjolras is whole.


End file.
